My anti-alcohol stance and campaign

by Thomas Dahlheimer
Director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc.

During Prohibition there was a national movement to change the name of the "Rum River" by those who saw the addictive and harmful nature of rum upon society. I believe that their movement was a good movement. Their reason for initiating the movement is also one of the reasons why I initiated and am spearheading the movement to change the name of the "Rum River".

---In an article of mine, an article that is AAANative.arts' [most read "issues & activism"
---article] and also a popular article on the website hippyland, an article that is
---titled Solving The Alcohol Abuse Epidemic , there are statements that
---read:

---During an early stage of this river name-change movement, I was asked to use this name-change issue
---to gain access to public forums wherein I would be able to express my opinion on whether it was right
---or wrong for Europeans to bring alcohol to the homelands of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas;
---and that if, in my opinion, it was not right, explain what could and should be done to rid alcohol
---from the Americas. And because of the world-wide support that I have received for my effort to change
---the name of the Rum River, I believe that it will not be long until I will be receiving recognition
---in the U.S.A mainstream news media as a social engineer in the forefront of a world-wide movement to
---stop the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas alcohol-abuse epidemic.

---I believe the restoration of the river's original name would help uplift the Indian community, which
---has been historically plagued by alcohol. When Europeans came to the Americas, the homelands of
---nearly 100,000,000 indigenous people, they brought rum and other alcoholic beverages with them. At
---the time, the Natives had no cultural controls in place for their usage. Hence, because of alcohol
---abuse, things moved into degradation and multitudes of premature deaths. And this situation was made
---even worse by the White's frequent use of alcohol in ruthless genocidal attacks, alcohol was given
---to the Indians in order to kill, subdue, or cheat them.

---Me and my anti-alcohol activist friends are on a mission to (first) establish a dry (alcohol free) Mille
---Lacs County, then we'll be working to establish a dry Isanti County, then a dry Sherburne County, and
---then a dry Anoka County. And after these four "Rum River" corridor counties become dry counties, we'll
---be working to make Minnesota a dry state. Then we'll be working to make the U.S.A. a dry nation.
--- And after the U.S.A. becomes a dry nation, we'll be working to make all nations throughout the world
---dry nations. We are going to shut the alcohol industry down!

---In 2008, I received a supportive call from Gene Amondson, the 2008 Presidential
---nominee for the National Prohibition Party. We spoke about the work we are doing to
---bring back Prohibition as well as establish dry states, counties and cities, etc. .
---Amondson is an international speaker and he has been on the John Stewart Daily Show
---once and on the Oprah show twice

---LeMoine LaPointe, director of the Healthy Nations Program at the Minneapolis
--- American Indian Center is quoted in an Isanti County newspaper as saying, "It's
---important to the health of Native American people that the river be called by its
---original name. Rum is a pollutant, a destructive chemical. It's not a poison river,
---it's a holy river.

---Rita Kaye Wert, the National President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
---recently contacted me and gave her support for the "good work" that I am doing to
---change the name of the Rum River and bring back Prohibition.

---Jim Anderson, the Historian and Co-cultural Chairman for Mendota Mdewakanton
---Dakota Community, wrote, in the Mentota Mdewakanton Dakota Community's letter
---of support:

---"I believe that renaming the river "Wakpa Wakan" or "Spirit River" is a great stride in mending the circle
---that we share with all four colors of man. We, as Dakotas, are very happy that there are people out there
---that are trying to understand that by using names like "rum" and "devil" to label sacred sites and
---places is degrading to our children, our elders and also to our ancestors. These places were already
---named in our language by our people because of their special meaning. When we have to tell our
---children why these places have been named after a poison or the worst words in their language. It is
---demoralizing to us to have to explain why a place is named after the same things that helped to steal
---our land and language. To have to be reminded of the cultural genocide that has been perpetrated on
---all Indian people. So, in changing the name back to the Dakota language, it will help in the healing
---process that our people continue to deal with."

---In a Star Tribune newspaper article Jim Anderson is quoted as saying: "It's another
---derogatory term. Naming a sacred river after what they were binging up to our people
---is wrong. We're in favor of the name change.

---Four letters to the editor of mine about my proposal to criminalize the selling of alcohol
---beverages near sacred Native American sites, including the Wakan Wakpa
---(Rum River), can be viewed and read by clicking anti-alcohol letters to the editor.

---In my article History of the Dakota People in Minnesota there is peace about how
---European colonists used the Dakotas weakness to abuse alcohol to reduce
---their numbers, distroy their religion, steal their sacred ancestral homelands
---and distroy their hope for a better life. Which caused the Dakotas 1862 uprising,
---defeat by the "settlers"/invaders and subsequent genocide and current
---subjugated state of existance.

---Video: Native Americans in the US state of Dakota are being driven to alcohol
---abuse and suicide. In this special report highlighting poverty issues in the United
---States, Al Jazeera's John Cookson meets a community of native Americans in South
---Dakota and reports on their daily struggle to survive

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